#30 - Chicken Piccata & '06 Stift Goettweig Grüner Veltliner

It was No Jury Duty Wednesday in the Ney house!

Food: Chicken Piccata with potatoes and radishes with arugula

Chicken piccata dredged in flour, fried lightly in oil and topped with a sautéed mixture of shallots, garlic, capers, tarragon (modified recipe) and lemon finished off with butter.

It's been awhile for chicken piccata, a previous Thursday night staple. One of our easy-ish, homey dishes (well...easy-ish for Mrs. Ney).

Pan-roasted potatoes and roasted radishes. The radishes didn't work. They were an experiment that was supposed to pair with typical grüner veltliner flavors. They didn't.

Good, solid meal.

Wine: 2006 Stift Goettweig Gottschelle Grüner Veltliner (high teens - WDC - Amy Rec.)

Stift Goettweig is an old Benedictine monastery on the east side of the Wachau region in Austria. They've been making wine for 1000 years. Gottschelle is the vineyard site.

Never tried or even heard of this winery before having it recommended to us by a nice person at Wine Discount Center.

Unique is a tired word for describing a wine and does nothing to actually do some describing. It fits here because I still don't know what the heck was going on with this one.

Very alive, well-integrated acidity, exotic background fruits, ones I couldn't for the life of me identify. Certainly white peach up front and beautiful at that. Drinking alone, I thought some kiwi juice showed up. Mrs. Ney found a vegetal note with the food.

I think we'll be following this grüner veltliner. It's just so perplexing. Some of the reviews said it has plenty of life and should age well. We'll see.

Pairing: Good Stuff

Stayed in that basic, general, proper range of a food and wine pairing, but specific pleasures popped up.

Those strange, exotic fruits showed up in a great way with the piccata and different ones peeked around the corner with the arugula. Just a gosh darn interesting wine with a "unique," bright acidity that let the fruits become complex. White peach was the consistent strand throughout with maybe a little white pepper showing up when hit with salt.

A better meal than if we went the traditional (and boring) way and drank something with pronounced lemon notes.

#29 - Asian Beef Filet & '05 Yalumba Shiraz-Viognier +1

Easily one of the best meals we've had in months.

Months, I tell you!

Food: Asian-tinged beef filet with rice cakes, basil and mâche

Bright and beautiful beef filet from Paulina Meat Market (expensive but worth every bite) marinated in soy and sake on top of cut basil, Trader Joe's rice cakes and mâche with a ponzu and sake dressing while fresh ginger and ponzu on the side.

Meat of this quality is so damn rare. Rivals the dry-aged beef from Fox & Obel and is probably better. Wait...yep. It's better. It's real meat in the most glorious way. Not prime rib. Not New York Strip. Those simply evoke childhood memories of what quality steak should be. Bullocks!

THIS is real meat. Bright, yet deep. Beautiful sanguine quality yet a lifting finish. Wagyu may be gold but, for the price, I'd happily take this any day over it.

Mrs. Ney cooked it so wonderfully, only a picture in the right light would do it justice. I'm not taking pictures of our food because that's stupid.

Trader's Joes rice cakes claimed to be overdone and maybe they were but nothing detracted.

Mâche done with a sesame oil and ponzu dressing that proved again that I'm starting to really like wine with greens.

Wine: 2005 Yalumba Hand-Picked Shiraz-Viognier - $35 Binny's (?)

First bottle corked. Only the second time we've had a corked bottle (can't for the life of me remember the first one). Second bottle gorgeous.

This is one that might be a perfect wine in a couple of years but it's still drinking great right now. A teeny bit of oak makes me think that a little time will allow that to integrate in the most wonderful way.

But that might be a great thing about slightly young Shiraz. You can tell a bit of time would reward the wine but it's still absolutely fine to cork and pour. You'll still love it.

No decant. Might have helped.

Big dark cherry with some sort of wild berry (mulberry in the WS description - yes, probably) with a bit of graphite and a nice minerality throughout. Don't really drink Left Bank Bordeaux for the most part so that whole graphite thing mystifies me a bit but yes, a pencil-like note was present and quite delicious. Blended with the fruit and took it to a new, much more complex level.

Definitely creamy and an herbal sage-like background. Not overripe in fruit. Played like a well-crafted syrah with only a hint of big, obvious Australian-ness. Graphite and berry with cream and sage. Wonderful.

A pretty great wine and something we need to buy more of soon.

Pairing: Perfect by the most pure definition in our world

First, the wine played off everything. As a great food and wine pairing should, this one enhanced the food to a level nearly unprecedented.

I can't state this more emphatically. This was a truly spectacular meal. Mrs. Ney put it perfectly. The medium body of the wine really allowed the bright, medium weight of the filets to play off each other. It was as if all the formal introductions were bypassed and they went straight to the conversation.

And what made that possible was the subtle touch with the Asian flavors. All of them served as a baseline foundation but nothing peaked its head past that. Everything stayed in its proper place. The brightness of the beef was the star with a little Asian flair peeking its head around the corner.

It took me hours to get the flavor of this pairing out of my mouth.

Best meal in months...and we've had some good ones.

I would be remiss without mentioning the next night's food and wine dud.

But some context should be applied. On a night when we were supposed to go out for dinner, I was called for jury duty and it went WAY over the time promised (and, of course, I got picked).

So...a bit of rushed planning job overall.

Food: Herbes de Provence-crusted New York Strip, farro and pomegranate seeds with pea shoots in olive oil and balsamic

Nothing wrong with the food at all. New York Strip from Paulina Meat Market, bought after Mrs. Ney saw the previous beef filet and decided to get both (while simultaneously not trying to rile the surly Paulina guys - a bit of "we'll do something wth that as well"- kind of thing).

They know her well.

Crust on the beef was gorgeous, done exactly like she does duck, a true joy in this house.

Something about New York Strip, though. Like I said previously, prime rib and NY strip simply evokes childhood memories of "fancy" steak and that's really it. Cooked beautifully and certainly delicious, but right after the filet, it didn't stand a chance.

Solid farro and pomegranate. Always good. Pea shoots with olive oil and balsamic served as a good palate cleanser.

Wine: 2007 Andezon Côtes de Rhône & 2006 Regis Bouvier Bourgogne En Montre Cul (both in the $12-18 range at WDC)

The meal was good. The wine is where we went wrong. Something about missing a night out and having jury duty screwed with everything.

I wanted to try the Andezon because so many restaurants in town have it on their wine list by the glass.

I may as well combine the descriptions because both followed the same evolutionary path. For about four minutes, both wines were mildly interesting, though initially closed.

The Andezon at its peak was zingy and full of red fruit. Not really that great (passable) but it showed a bit more personality. The Bouvier showed a bit more pure fruit with a tinge of funk in the background. Kind of what we've experienced with cheap Burgundy but I'm not interested in that, at least not yet. It'll take a few years for us to get into Burgundy because good expressions are so damn expensive.

After their ever-so-brief peaks, both turned flabby and boring.

Here's a lesson. If Robert Parker raves about a wine, talking about it in flowery prose with superlatives belched all over the place while only giving it 90 points, he didn't love it. Just pass.

Pairing: Awful

And we weren't cracking a third bottle for this meal.

We wanted to go out!

#28 - Two Meals & Three Wines

A little catch-up.

Two midweek meals.

First up was an attempt at a Greek-style wine can chicken with zucchini bread pudding and arugula.

The Greek aspect never really came through but it was the typical delicious wine can chicken with one difference. This time the thigh was the star with the breast coming in second. Juicy, dark and delicious. One of the best thighs I've ever had. Fig, honey and mustard glaze on the chicken led to some great skin.

It's been five days since we ate this meal and I still don't know if I liked the odd concoction that was zucchini bread pudding. I'm vexed! Ate it all but it was a tad weird.

Which led to our vexing wine experience.

The 2008 Babcock Identity Crisis ($20 In Fine Spirits) was our first wine pairing, bought because it sounded so darn interesting. 100% syrah but not a red wine. Not a white either. Not even a rosé. Skins touched the juice a little longer than a typical rosé and the result is a wine with sort of a copper hue. If I drank it blind (and room temperature), I wouldn't have guessed what it was in a 1000 years. Dry with a mixture of something like apricot and pomegranate. A little creamy spice like cinnamon whipped cream. Bit of a short finish but nothing unpleasant. A wee hint of alcohol in a good way. With the food, it was fine enough but nothing spectacular. Wasn't a good pairing but we could have plowed through and been okay with it.

We didn't plow through. Interested in seeing what the hell would go with the tomatoes in the zucchini bread pudding, I cracked one of our favorite bargain wines, the 2006 Domaine Des Tours Vin De Pays Vaucluse ($17 WDC). Bought on a recommendation from the Rhône lovers at WDC, we gave it a whirl with a fig tart a few months ago and were blown away by the pairing. It's still one of the better pairings of food and wine I've ever had.

A little light in the glass with red fruits of cherry and raspberry. Spice and earth serve as the subtle background with a silky medium finish that makes you want so much more. For $17, it's the best bargain Rhône we've ever had and serves, in my view, as the best introduction to Rhône wines out there. Perfect place to start in my experience with southern France.

But the pairing pretty much sucked. I can still taste the zucchini bread pudding with the wine. All gasoline. The wine completely separated into its component parts and the alcohol won the fight. Best with the arugula (actually pretty great) and good enough with the chicken.

So...we had strike two on us and decided to forfeit the rest of the at-bat.

Live and learn.

Dinner #2 came on the heels of a trip to Binny's in Lincoln Park.

The former Sam's has always been a thorn in our sides. For such a huge place, the selection and pricing was always so ungodly awful.

But when Binny's bought Sam's out three months, they were stuck with a ton of stock that come from suppliers that Binny's doesn't deal with or were in the last year of their drinking window.

Result = DEEEEEP discount extravaganza!

Spent $110. Saved $150 on 14 bottles of wine. Nearly all of the 14 bottles were under $10 marked down from $20-30.

It was a great chance to beef up the wine inventory of bottles we don't have to think about before cracking.

Dinner was leftover Spanish-style beef brisket sandwiches on baguette with mayo. A simple meal to clean out the refrigerator using the brisket from dinner a few days ago.

We drank the 2006 Bokisch Graciano ($8 down from $24) bought in the Binny's trip.

I don't want to get too ridiculous about this wine but if it were $6, we'd be buying this by the case. Something about the difference between $6 and $8 that makes me pause (still might buy a few more, though).

Graciano is mostly only grown in Rioja. It's quintessentially Spanish, all dark cherry and a bit of spice with solid structure and a big nose. Low-cost 100% graciano borders on the simple but nonetheless has a place.

I was leery of a California graciano, figuring it was be all big fruit with no complexity, but for $8, why not?

Wouldn't say the Bokisch was complex, but it was balanced and subtle with a nice layering, even some spice with a floral note and maybe some orange peel. Solid fruit with a wild red berry dominating. Never would have thought it was Californian. At the original price of $24, it's an iffy buy, but it drinks like a good Spanish wine priced in the high teens.

And the pairing was surprisingly good. Good, simple, Spanish-style meal with a good, simple Spanish-style wine.

I can still taste it.

#27 - Tilapia Tacos & Purple Corn Sangria

On a random Tuesday afternoon last year with nothing else on the tele, we gave an episode of Boy Meets Grill with Bobby Flay a try.

What came from it just proves that worthless television can occasionally produce great results (Lesson: watch more worthless TV - may I suggest Bridezillas?).

Purple Corn Sangria.

It's a sangria concoction of Peruvian purple corn (found in many Latin grocery stores), pineapple, cinnamon, water, sugar, Pisco liquor and Sauvignon Blanc.

We've made it three times now and it's a dark, heavenly brew that has become the standard for sangria in the Ney household.

One caveat: cheap Sauvignon Blanc doesn't cut it. We tried using Barefoot once and it wasn't nearly as good. Kim Crawford - a wine that was hot for about two seconds last year, every wine shop ordered entirely too much, it never sold and now everyone's stuck with it by the pallet, thereby driving down the price considerably - works perfect ($13).

Food: Tilapia tacos with guacamole, radish and Brussels sprout slaw, jalapeño sour cream and hot sauce

Quickly becoming a staple, tilapia (or mahi mahi) tacos aim to be authentic Mexican (or Central American coast) tacos and, from our experience in trying to get to know these things, succeeds. Other tacos from anywhere (including Los Nopales) just don't measure up.

Fish marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin and then grill the fish.

Spicy, salty, earthy and fresh with the just the right acid, making everything a ridiculous, mouth-watering, blissful adventure. I wasn't even hungry when we started eating last night. Didn't matter.

Beverage: Purple Corn Sangria

Tough to explain the flavor of it. Dark and intense, yet the depth created by the purple corn takes the sweetness that plagues typical sangria down a notch. Good sangria is great, but I rarely want more than a glass or so. Purple corn sangria never gets old.

And the recipe is incredibly easy to made. Just one more step than regular sangria. Stick the purple corn and pineapple flesh in a pot of simmering water for an hour and drain.

Pairing: Yes, Please

Probably a top-three hot summer meal no matter how trite that sounds.

The sangria brightened up a bit, sure. Mostly though, the pleasure was in how complimentary the food and sangria were. It's not as if they played off each other or the sangria enhanced the food particularly, just that nothing conflicted and the consistent "Latin-ness" of everything made for a better meal than if each were separate. It stayed at that point but it was still a pretty nice place to be.

Again, wasn't even hungry and I was sad to see it end.

#26 - Spanish-Style Beef Brisket & '07 Petalos

A revisit of what's probably our first real love: Spanish food with Spanish wine.

Food: Spanish-style beef brisket with green beans/almonds and pugliese bread with butter

Beef brisket cut stewed in smoked paprika, saffron, onions, tomatoes, sherry vinegar, thyme, garlic, olive oil, black pepper and Sicilian green olives.

Sautéed green beans and rustic-style bread with butter.

The brisket came off much lighter, brighter and more succulent than Mrs. Ney predicted. Really quite delicious; the kind of thing that makes you rue the time when it will be gone because then you can't eat more. The leftover brisket should make for great sandwiches.

Green beans became great when the brisket juice bled into them.

We'll be having this exact recipe again. Mrs. Ney found a good one and we're sticking to it.

Wine: 2007 Descendientes de Jose Palacios "Petalos" Bierzo - $17 WDC

Or just Petalos for short. Comes from the Bierzo region, an area just north of Portugal in northwest Spain. 100% Mencia grapes, a vine indigenous to the area with the vast majority still only grown in Bierzo.

It's a bit of a workhorse wine for weeknight meals. Cheap-ish yet plays above its price point.

Deep red in the glass, very little nose. A mixture of blackberry and a little cherry with a very pronounced sanguine quality that defines this one. Medium finish, nothing to write home about but overall, the Petalos is a lovely wine topped off with a hint of violets. Definitely needs food but with food, it explodes. All the elements come out to play and stay in harmony. Nothing dominates.

For $17 and with Spanish food - especially anything with a combo of smoked paprika, saffron and tomato, something that Spanish recipes have tons of - the Petalos is something to have on hand at all times. Just bloody good for the price.

Pairing: Matched up perfectly

The sanguine quality of the wine paired so entirely well with the brisket juice as it also had a light, bloody quality. Nothing about the brisket was big or heavy so the medium body and low tannins in the Petalos matched up structurally as well.

It's what you want in a pairing. A surprise to us, actually, on how well it worked. A bit of a happy accident.

But definitely drink Petalos with food. By itself...meh.

#25 - Chicken Breasts/Pumpkin Risotto & '05 Hungarian White

I discussed Hungarian whites in a catch-all post two weeks ago on a trip to Ceres' Table.

We have little experience with such things but the ones (three now?) we have had have been delicious, balanced and incredibly food-friendly.

Tough to find, nothing too expensive when you do and entirely worth the effort.

Dinner was Chicken Breasts, Pumpkin Risotto and Arugula Salad with Balsamic and Pumpkin Seeds paired with Big Chef Takes On Little Chef, a show that I want to like as it's a good concept but it's struggling to authentically ramp up the drama.

Big, honkin', herbed-up chicken breasts with a squash risotto recipe modified with pumpkin.

Just a really good, clean meal. Fresh. Nothing too dense but still filling.

The 2005 Királyudvar Tokaji Sec, with the gray hairs this one is already showing, is a gracefully aging wine showing a touch of floral notes, a wee bit of oil, lemon and exotic fruits with a medium finish. Dry and a tad herbal. A hint of sugar amps up the exotic fruits here and there (I've read guava and that would be a good description). Great stuff.

You can read more about it here (we've had a Nero d'Avola - Nerojbleo - from the other winery discussed in the piece and while hit and miss from bottle to bottle, it can be quite good).

The pairing was as close to perfect as our understanding of wine pairings knows.

Extremely food-friendly and should be quite versatile, the wine had just enough acidity to hold up to everything on the plate and had a beautiful harmony with every bite. No complaints about anything. Nothing fell short.

That little bit of oil and herbs elevated the entire dinner to a great food and wine pairing.

Search this one out.

#24 - Moto

We did the 20-course tasting at Moto two days ago.

If you don't know Moto, it's a molecular gastronomy restaurant on Fulton Street where chef Homaro Cantu revels in making food look like one thing and taste like another.

This is our second visit and, while our first time was a top-three restaurant experience as we had a great time with the waiter, the food was probably better this time.

Much of our memory, though, will be scarred by the four-top of asshats two tables down that didn't understand that the small space was being entirely taken over by their loud and boring douchebaggery. For example, near the end, the loudest of the bunch thought his dining mates were actually interested in his commute schedule and what speed it took to hit all the green lights and how that compared to leaving at 8am as opposed to 8:30am. It was your typical, young, ad sales-types that thought they were foodies and the rest of the room should know this.

I'm not going to go over each course individually. Just list the meal and the wine pairings to the extent that I can remember. The great ones, food that will be remembered a year from now, are in blue. Good ones that made the 4 1/2 hour excursion worth the trip are in red.

On that time commitment, just like Alinea a few years ago, we started to struggle toward the end (something not helped by a 20-minute gap around the 14th course).

But, if anything, every now and then, seeing the re-conceptualization of food makes it worth the greenbacks and time. Cantu likes screwing with perceptions in an original way.

I will say, though, with the food we have at home and with our wine collection growing, this type of thing is becoming less and less a needed thing.

Again, spectacular in blue, pretty great in red and I'll add a category. Stuff that fell a bit flat in mustard yellow.

Moto's 20 course GTM:

Garlic Bread

Denver Omelet

- NV J. Lasselle, Imperial Preference, Chigny Les Roses, Brut

French Onion Soup

- 1990 Balthasar Ress, Johannisberger Klaus Spatlese Riesling

Urban Garden

- 2008 Yealands, Seaview Vineyard, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough

Fruits de mar

- 2007 J.M. Brocard, Montmains Chablis

Loaded Fries

- 2006 Domaine de l'Oratoire St. Martin, Haut-Coustias, Carianne

Virgin Mary

Cigar de Cuba

- 2000 Luis Pato, Premiera Escholha, Beiras

Rabbit Maki

- 2007 Soter North Valley Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

Reuben Lasagna

- 2006/7 Frog's Leap Merlot, California

Shabuccino

- 2007 Caduceus Primer Paso Syrah, California

CO2 Pineapple & Jerk

Duck & Molé

- 2005 Truchard Zinfandel, Carneros

Cereal Flakes?

Rainbow Sprinkles

- Wild Blossom Meadery, Sweet Desire, South Chicago

Squash Forms

Burger With Cheese

Acme Bombs

Chocolate, Truffles

Root Beer Float

- Two double espressos with the last four. I think we missed the last two wine offerings.

Mr. Cantu, you are wonderful.

And I thank you.

The Urban Garden with the Sauvignon Blanc pairing was the surprise of the night and will be remembered. Loaded Fries was just fantastic. The Cigar de Cuba, though, was the absolute star. It's as good as it gets.

Going over the entire thing would bore me to tears so I'll just say it's Thoughtful and Fun.

Worth the time and money?

Um.................................yeah. Sure, why not?

#23 - Zucchini Pie & '07 Prá Soave

We here at Food & Wine covered our love for zucchini pie here.

It's a combination of zucchini, onions, copious amounts of garlic, parsley, basil, grain mustard, mozzarella, parmesan and black pepper. Delicious. Every time.

With the first pairing, we gave a Trader Joe's Pouilly Fumé a whirl and it didn't work at all. The wine was killed by something unidentifiable, probably the pepper or garlic. It's a more delicate wine.

For this pairing, we gave an Italian white a shot, hoping that a touch of more acidity and bigger fruit would stand up.

While not an acidic Italian white in the traditional sense (a falanghina or a greco might be great) , Soave, a wine we only recently discovered and still have only had twice, seemed like a reasonable wine for zucchini pie.

Especially for the price ($13 Wine Discount Center), the 2007 Prá Soave Classico entirely held its own. A pleasing white with good balance, the Prá offers a nice touch of citrus fruits (lemon with a wee touch of orange) and a bit a green apple with a medium-long finish. Maybe a little spice and almond. I found a touch of peach juice only after reading the tasting notes. Good value wine.

Soave comes from the Veneto region in northeast Italy near Venice and is made from the garganega grape. The grape is pretty much exclusively used to make Soave with some wineries using it for blending purposes and some making recioto sweet dessert wines with it.

The pairing was goshdarn solid.

In short, the wine let the melding of the flavors in the zucchini pie stay true to what it is while the wine was heightened a bit with the food. We cracked and poured with only about ten minutes out of the refrigerator. A metallic taste came upon first sip but once the wine came up in temperature, it hit its stride.

Good stuff for the price and thoroughly outperformed the Pouilly Fumé.

Now we know.

#22 - Flank Steak With Onion Tart and '03 Chateau Fombrauge

French food with French wine. Perfect.

Or so we thought.

The meal was definitely French. The wine was definitely French. Together they were...nothing spectacular.

I think it was the shock at how ordinary the pairing was. Nothing sung and we expected it to sing.

Meal: Marinated Flank Steak with sautéed mushrooms and onion tart on a bed of spinach

The star was the onion tart. Savory tarts = delicious and we don't eat them enough. This particular one had the onions at just the right point between cooked and raw. Great texture and the entire thing was beautifully seasoned.

The flank steak, which I liked more than Mrs. Ney was also perfectly seasoned and a perfect medium-rare. Great pepper that nicely liquified in the meat juice. Simple sautéed mushrooms that should have been a great pair with a Right Bank bordeaux. Properly-prepared mushrooms can be a Godsend and these were by themselves.

I loved the loving loveliness of the meal. Tasted French. With a different perspective though, it could have been mildly Californian.

Wine: 2003 Chateau Fombrauge ($35 Binny's) and 2005 Chateau Puygueraud ($35 WDC)

The Fombrauge was the wine that made Mrs. Ney stand up and take notice of Right Bank Bordeaux.

Truffle and plum on the nose. Deep, deep red in the glass. Very typical St. Emilion on the palate with that plummy quality with a bit of blackberry and earth, vanilla and mushroom, a little oak and soft, soft tannins. Bordered on rich but never got all the way there. I wonder what would happen with a few more years. Bought two more at $30 each from Hart Davis Hart to find out. Fantastic buy.

The Puygueraud was opened to contrast the two. Loads of blackberry, licorice, a bit of lavender and mineral (graphite?). Thinner than the Fombrauge. Fine enough but nothing special. Age wouldn't do much in my opinion. Comes from a region a few miles east of St. Emilion (Cotes de Francs). #32 on the Wine Spectator top 100 list of 2008. Probably wouldn't buy it again unless it was $25 or under.

Pairing: Never Quite Got There

This should have been perfect in our view. It wasn't. The Fombauge didn't elevate with the flank steak or the mushrooms. Performed best with the onion tart but overall, we felt it should have been better. In fact, with most of the meal, it became somewhat boring. We could still identify it as a very good wine with a spectacular quality-to-price ratio but it fell kinda flat.

The Puygueraud didn't perform much better. I vacillated over whether it was a good wine period but eventually fell into the camp of 'good enough'. Left a little to see what some air will do to it (and left a little because I was bordering on snookered).

I guess, in the end, we expected a pairing that would border on transcendent. It wasn't.

Maybe a New World wine? More fruit-forward with a nod to the Old World. Portuguese?

Who knows?

#21 - Tuna With Olives and Capers & '98 Heredia Rosado

I think I've established the fact that López de Heredia is our favorite winery on the planet by now.

The rosado offered by Heredia is not really among their collection of wines that we love.

We like it, yes. It's oh-so-Heredia. But it can have a damp dishrag aftertaste. If that's held off for as long as possible, it can be great. But it's always playing on the palate on some level. Stave it off and you got a stew goin'.

Meal: Olive/Caper Tapenadey-type Thing On Top Of Rare Tuna, Heirloom Field Greens and Baguette with Butter

Second day in a row without red meat and I felt clean and balanced.

Quality tuna cooked well with a finely-chopped black olive and caper topping reminiscent of the tuna that Mrs. Ney had at Chiado in Toronto (truly great meal - top 10 easy and has aged so well in our minds). Heirloom field greens that had a little less coarse blandness than the usual field greens. Baguette and butter that has replaced baby potatoes as the default starch in our household.

Just like the tilapia, I felt clean, clean, clean. Real good stuff. I miss tuna. It's simply been overlooked and we should eat more of it.

Another meal where we both said, "God, we eat well."

Wine: 1998 López de Heredia Tondonia Rosado - $22 Binny's

Orangish tint in the glass, not falling apart at the edges. Very little nose but definitely Heredia.

On the palate, it's subdued, drying fruit that hang around in the background. Not forward at all. Bit of fig, a little nut and that pleasant mustiness that comes with Heredia wines. Separated on me occasionally with a dustiness showing up early every other sip. Not harmonious but enough balance to enjoy it for what it is. People talk of the sherry quality when talking about why they enjoy it but I don't get it. Not pronounced enough for me to say that.

This wine is always in play when we think about rosés but a bit more fruitiness may have been a good thing with the meal and for what we wanted that night.

I cracked a cheap 2008 Cantele Negroamaro Salento to compare and it was like drinking water.

Pairing: You Know...Good Enough

Nothing inspiring but the wine allowed the tuna to be itself and the tuna let the Heredia stay everything that Heredia rosado is. Little kick-ups here and there but with Heredia rosados, I've always gotten a pleasing finish for about 20 seconds and then a real dustiness rears its head. That's welcome when it's integrated into the rest of the wine but, by itself, I don't dig it so much. We'll do this pairing again because we like both tuna and this wine (intriguing enough to always return to it) but another year of Heredia rosado besides the 1998 is greatly anticipated.

#20 - Coconut & Salsa Tilapia With '08 Yalumba Viognier

Four different kinds of meat, five total, were consumed the day before this Food With Wine offering.

Something clean, light, nutritious and non-meaty was absolutely imperative.

The following was so good and left us feeling so clean, a non-meat protein is back on the menu for tonight.

Food: Tilapia poached in coconut milk and chipotle salsa over pea shoots with Trader Joe's vegetable samosas

Clean, clean, clean. Not too light with the deep-fried samosas bringing some fat to the party. The chipotle along with the spice in the samosas also brought a hint of a heat kick.

A simple coconut milk and chipotle salsa reduction became infinitely better than the sum of its parts and the pea shoots freshened everything up beautifully. the entire meal, after thawing the tilapia, was prepared astonishingly quick. Probably a half-hour total.

Great meal. We'll be eating this again.

Wine: 2008 Yalumba Viognier Eden Valley - $13 Binny's

#39 on the list of Wine Spectator's top 100 of 2009.

Personally, I could take or leave Australian whites. They're usually merely representative of the grape and not particularly layered or exciting. This one really wasn't much different.

If tasted blind, I would have guessed it was an unoaked chardonnay. Creamy with mostly pineapple fruit. Nothing great and was probably included on the WS list because it was so cheap and fairly versatile with food.

Wasn't terrible but we wouldn't buy it again.

Pairing: Meh

In the beginning, a sprightliness to the wine made us think it could end up quite good. I got a nice lime acid kick with the spice but it quickly dissipated. By the middle of the meal with the palate fully coated with the flavors of the meal, the viognier became nothing more than watered-down pineapple juice with a hint of cream. In good viogniers, a floral perfume dominates with ethereal fruit, nice spice and fantastic layers. This was too one-dimensional.

Nothing clashed. It just didn't compliment the food in new or exciting ways.

#19 - A Threesome For The First Week Of 2010

Actually four meals with wine in the last week.

The fourth involved a trip to Ceres' Table in Andersonville, a new, Italian-influenced restaurant with American accents from the guy that manned the Boka and MK kitchens in Chicago.

We were left with a choice between this new, recommended restaurant three blocks from our apartment and taking a trip to Mado. Mado - BYO. Ceres' Table - not. Mado = awesome. Ceres' Table = neighborhoody place that makes us immediately suspicious that it won't be money well spent and we'll leave thinking "meh". Mado = our own wine. Ceres' Table = no internet list to filter through and determine whether they're serious about offering good wine at something approaching reasonable restaurant prices.

Three blocks away won out.

Day after holiday at 5pm meant we had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves (=ing awesome).

The menu:

Appetizers - rabbit confit gnocchi, pistachio-inflected country paté and veal tongue

Entrées - flat iron steak and venison

Dessert - crème brûlée and banana bread pudding

Wines - bottles of Szoke Kiraly Hungarian white and Scutari Nero d'Avola with two glasses of Prosecco (one white, one rosé)

In our limited experience, Hungarian whites offer something that oodles of people would love if they gave them a chance. This one was wonderfully balanced with well-integrated fruit, highlighted by pear and orange blossom and a floral note that allows it to silkily wash down the throat. The Kiraly grape, indigenous to Hungary, is better known for Tokaji dessert wines but the dry styles deserve more press.

The nero d'avola was a typical nero d'avola with maybe a bit less spice. Solid fruit, no rough edges, nothing special or exciting but paired well with the entrées. Entry level but decent.

The wine list offered at least four other wines that would get me back in the door. Both a 100% nerello mascalese (seems to be a newer trend/reversion to the old style by omitting the cappuccino) and a Cannonau sounded great (even a couple of negroamaros). It's thoughtful, emphasizing lesser-known Italian wines but offering a hodgepodge from around the world that would pair well with the menu.

Ceres' Table overall falls into a rather quixotic category. I think I can safely say it's the best restaurant in the Andersonville/Lincoln Square food world (soundly trumping the oddly-loved Bistro Champagne). We did it up, which allowed us to get a better sampling of everything they offer than probably 99% of the people that eat there. Guiseppe, the owner, takes a bistro-type angle, offering simply-prepared food but doesn't cater to morons. There's a depth of flavor here unlike anything north of Fullerton and he does it with ingredients that challenge people to somewhat expand their palates.

In short, it's nice to have that near us. Some nice touches include entrées hovering in the mid-teens/early-twenties price range, an eclectic wine list with the majority in the $30-$40 range, all desserts are $5 and LaBriola bread offered gratis.

This isn't food you will remember a year later but it's food that you'll remember two weeks after you have it. If it wasn't so close, I'd still keep an eye on the internet food and wine menu to see about a return trip. Since it's so close, we'll go back, probably soon.

Back the home food and wine with three pairings in the last week.

Meal #1: Modified Tbikhit Qra with 2007 A to Z Pinot Noir - $18 Trader Joe's

Tbikhit Qra is a north African casseroley-type thing consisting of chickpeas, pumpkin, spinach, onion and harissa with lamb added to this particular recipe. Big bowl of clean, surprisingly light goodness and spectacular juice to the whole dish that stuck in your cheeks.

The pairing seemed pretty obvious with pinot noir of some sort holding the top-five slots on the option list. Since Mrs. Ney was a bit leery as to how the dish would turn out, we went with something fairly cheap and safe.

A to Z Pinot Noir is available pretty much everywhere. For many, it's the kind of wine that allows you to get into something a little more complex than your standard, cheap varietal wine without breaking the bank. It's $18.

For the first half of the meal, It was simple, maybe a little too simple, but fine enough with the food. The second half of the meal, though, the wine started to open up, becoming more dark with more cinnamon and a pleasing juiciness. Still a just-above-average pinot noir but in the value category with enough acidity to go with tons of other food choices. Oddly, it was better, great actually, drinking it first and then taking a bite instead of the usual other way around.

Good midweek meal that we'll revisit it again.

Meal #2: Asian Wine Can Chicken with 2005 Prager Riesling Smaragd Steinreigl - $25 WDC

The first offering here at Food With Wine involved the 1999 Prager Riesling Smaragd Steinriegl. It went over the label terms there. Six years on, this one shows a similar life trek. Where the 1999 was dying a glorious, very imminent death, the 2005 showed what could only be described as showing the first signs of age. The wrinkles around the eyes were starting to show.

And that made it pretty great. The fruit has started to concentrate and is just starting to dry. Intense with tropical fruit and an overtone of green apple and a bit of peach. Still a tad light, though. Elegant with a lifting finish.

It paired in the way you want Asian-inspired food to pair. Great counterbalance to the salt and hoisin crust with a bit of orange peel on the chicken.

Prager is one of the wineries we will follow in some form every year going forward and this exact one was the wine that made us stand up and take notice of better crafted, more expensive whites.

Meal #3: Pistachio-crusted rack of lamb wrapped in Serrano ham and 2006 Ponzi Pinot Noir

Speaking of wines we'll follow, Ponzi Pinot Noir is one of the top five. It's the wine that made us love Oregon pinot noir. For the first time, the 2006 (which we've had a ton) is starting to show some graceful age.

Every other time we've had it, the 2006 Ponzi was exactly the same - a lighter wine with cherry and other red fruits playing around in the background and a pronounced floral note that made the finish glorious. Just great balance and a perfect amount of acidity. We hadn't had this one for a few months and were immediately surprised by how deep it's become. The balance and acidity is still in harmony with a body that's changed from lighter to medium, fruit so much deeper I thought some darker black fruit might be there. It's been entirely interesting and wonderful to actually taste, for the first time, some of our wines age in our relatively-brief wine drinking world.

The recipe for the lamb called for pancetta but I bought waayyyy too much Serrano ham for New Year's Eve and it had to be used up. The purpose of using pancetta was to allow the fat to leech into the lamb. Serrano doesn't have that fat but it wasn't a problem at all. The Serrano, instead, became fully crisp and the unique earthiness that comes with it worked beautifully with the pistachio/oil and the lamb, offering something probably better than what pancetta would have. Tasted like a charcuterie plate was slathered on the lamb. As everything fell onto the arugula that accompanied the meat, it became one of the best salad concoctions I've had in a long time.

Nothing was greatly enhanced by the food and wine pairing. It was rather one of those nicely complimentary pairings where nothing hurt anything. Good food stayed good food. Good wine stayed good wine.

#18 - New Year's Eve Mélange

Still sick...ish.

It's gotten to the point where Mrs. Ney cringes when I begin to cough...because it isn't going to stop.

We don't celebrate New Year's Eve like the rest of the planet. We don't do 'groups' if we can help it and a collective 40 years in the customer service industry probably has something to do with it.

So we gathered up some of our favorite foods, paired some appropriate wines and had a nice little day and night that culminated in the glorious ABC 7 tradition of showing middle-aged white people dancing and ringing in the New Year to the dulcet tones of the Gin Blossoms at some hotel in Schaumburg. Always funny.

Lunch: Charcuterie-style grab bag of goodness with Champagne

Serrano Ham

Lomo Embuchado (thinly sliced, dry-cured pork tenderloin)

Abondance cheese (French)

Mahon cheese (Spanish)

Manchego cheese (Spanish)

Baguette

Grain mustard

Oil-cured black olives

Marcona Almonds

NV Henriot Souverain Brut Champagne - $40 Binny's

A softer Champagne, entirely pleasing with mellow green apple, only a touch of yeast, a bit of honey and a medium finish. We're more Cava people as we enjoy the rustic edge it brings but there was nothing wrong with this Champagne, even if it wasn't even close to being worth $40 ($20 and we would buy it again if the occasion was right).

The pairing worked in a different way than a traditional pairing. Nothing was enchanced, per se, was the sparkler and individual bites. The enjoyment came from simply having it with the meal to serve as a lifter of everything. It kept everything light and bright with the bubbles keeping the palate awake.

Individually, pairing it with the Serrano ham alone was terrible. Tasted like gym socks but with bread and a little mustard, things like that could be hidden.

This meal is easily one of my top-five favorites, a "little bit of this, a little bit of that"-type meal chockablock with top quality ingredients. Serrano ham is always heaven and I think I now love Abondance.

Great lunch.

Dinner: Duck with spicy Farro and Brussels Sprouts with CDP and California Rhone-style

We carried the "little bit of this, little bit of that" to dinner.

Two half bottles:

2007 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe "La Crau" Châteauneuf-du-Pape - $40 Binny's

2007 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel Paso Robles - $18 WDC

Medium-rare duck slathered in a fig-based sauce with spicy farro and leaves of Brussels sprouts hit with only a little heat.

Spectacular duck. Just spectacular. Caused a serious pause on first taste. The farro turned out a tad too spicy but didn't kill anything and a huge mound of Brussels sprout leaves served for me as a palate cleanser at the end of the meal.

In short, both wines paired generously with the duck. Maybe not perfect but there was a lot to like with both of them.

The "La Crau" was #3 on the Wine Spectator top 100 for 2009. It's young, of course but we figured the 375ml bottle helped it out a bit. We have limited experience with CDP but enough to know what to expect. It's very typical of CDP w/r/t tasting notes (fig, garrigue, licorice, berry, currant, smoke) with the added benefit of a beautiful balance between all of that. A finish that really sneaks up on you and lingers beautifully. It was the best of the two with the duck, playing around with it, alternating flavors with each subsequent bite. The fruit was a bit restrained so we'll put the other two bottles of this away to see what happens. Going to be great, most likely.

The Esprit de Beaucastel was rich, rich, rich! California Rhônes are such a nice, new experience for us. We just got into them and they - along with some Syrahs - altered our snooty prejudices of California reds. A lot of roasted herbs here with dark rich berry to start that turns to red berry. It's Mourvèdre-forward (44% M, 29% G, 21% S with 6% Counoise) and it may suffer from what we don't particularly enjoy about Cali-Rhônes. They can be a tad syrupy. We've had worse in this respect and a little age would mellow this out.

Overall though, it strikes a balance. I liked it with the spicy farro with a licorice note kicking up. A lot to like, but wasn't the big-boy wine that the "La Crau" was. Probably would have loved it if the Télégraphe wasn't sitting right next to it. We both kept reaching for the CDP and had to consciously incorporate the Tablas Creek into the picture.

Really satisfying day of food with wine.

#17 - What Happens When You Drink Wine While Sick

Here's what happens when you try to force the issue.

If we were iced in and couldn't see family for Christmas Day, Mrs. Ney had ropa vieja planned as a back-up meal (a slowly-stewed short rib concoction consisting of tomatoes, capers and various spices).

Stupid roads weren't icey enough. So, three days later, it became a Monday night meal.

Instead of leaving the sauce/chutney/stew-like mixture that makes ropa vieja chunky, she puréed it, imparting a certain silky depth that came off magically delicious, a flavor that stuck in your cheek and never left. Not sticky, just gloriously subtle and deep.

Both of us were sick, or on the brighter side of sick - me more than Mrs. Ney as per usual. Both of our palates were...not good. Believing things were getting better and wine could be brought back into play, we opened a recommended zinfandel, rather happy that we could get back on the wine horse.

Nope. Not even close. In fact, it became an increasingly hilarious waste of time.

The list:

2006 Za Zin Old Vine Zinfandel Lodi - $20 WDC

A lighter Zinfandel without the pronounced jamminess that usually comes with zinfandel. More red fruit and a little less spice. Probably a nice change of pace but the ropa vieja and our colds killed it.

So...we cracked something else, taking our colds into account and tried to go bigger and cheaper, thinking this whole wine-food thing was doomed from the start. Just crack something cheap.

2006 Archeo Ruggero di Tasso Nero d'Avola - $5 Trader Joe's

Bleech! Too acidic with the food and our increasingly-cursed colds. Not at all what this bargain-basement and decent little wine typically is.

At this point, sane people would stop and just give up. Not us.

So...we went bigger and darker because the ropa vieja deserved the effort.

2006 Nashwauk Tempranillo McLaren Vale - $15 Binny's

Not a Spanish tempranillo at all. Less cherry and more earth and leather. We've loved this one in the past, knew it well and had high hopes.

Nothing but tannins.

Strike three, right? Nope.

2007 Antonio Caggiano Tarì Aglianico - $15 WDC

Aglianico had to work. It just had to. I knew Caggiano wines through my restaurant. He's one of the most respected names in southern Italy, always making wines of high quality at the price point.

Mostly though, as the process became funnier by the bottle, I figured let's go whole hog and ruin another bottle.

I'll revisit this one someday as I could actually taste something. Pretty floral background with bright dark fruit and almost a sparkling tinge to it.

Still didn't work with the ropa vieja.

Strike freakin' four!

Four bottles of wine worth $55, one good ropa vieja and it was a colossal wine-with-food failure.

A week earlier, after the effects of the first day of my cold seemed to subside and I felt like it could have been a 24-hour thing, we may have committed an even bigger error in our wine world.

Wine can chicken with a hoisin/orange glaze, baguette, butter and arugula was paired with one of our favorite winery's bottles:

2000 López de Heredia Bosconia Rioja - $30 Sam's (?)

Nothing! Nothing! We tasted nothing!

A great, lighter-bodied wine from a rainy year that has wonderful leafy, berry notes and a hint of orange peel. Should have paired beautifully.

Got! Nothin'!

Lesson: Don't! Drink! Wine! When you're sick!

#16 - Roulades With Nero And Zucchini Pie With Pouilly Fume

At some point, I hope to get to a Trader Joe's "Best Values" feature.

For now, here's two selections that will make the list that were served with quick, weeknight dinners over the last two weeks.

Trader Joe's does a solid job of getting representations of nearly every grape/sub-region at dirt cheap prices.

These two offerings offer that and a little more.

Meal #1 - Pasta Roulades And Meatballs With 2007 Archeo Ruggero Di Tasso Nero D'avola - $5 Trader Joe's

Okay. This Nero D'avola is softer than most, offering less spice and a somewhat mealy mishmash of berries usually found in Nero D'avola on its own.

But it's $5! And with tomato sauce and meat-type products, it's elevated to something much better than passable, especially for a quick, thrown-together dinner of Italian fare. And did I mention it's $5?

Pasta roulades came from Pasta Fresh on Harlem, still the most annoying errand run in Chicago but worth it if you toss it together with other annoying errands (putting it all under one annoying umbrella).

They were coupled with Trader Joe's Frozen Party Meatballs, an another passable packaged meat product when making dinner seems like a lot of work. The entire meal was gussied up with a homemade marinara sauce using Italian (not San Marzano) tomatoes.

The pairing is like an introductory course on why Italian food should be paired with Italian wine. No illusions here. This is cheapish food with cheap wine, but the result approaches that uniquely Italian wine and food combination that gets Italians' undies all in a bunch. Just simply approaching. Not entirely there, but good nonetheless.

For the effort and cost, it's a solid little weeknight meal.

Meal #2 - Zucchini Pie With 2008 Caves des Perrìeres Pouilly Fume - $12 TJ's

Zucchini pie is a staple Thursday night meal (our Monday) in the Ney house. Once or twice a month is pretty standard.

Trader Joe's Pouilly Fume is a satisfying little afternoon drinking wine, especially in the summer, offering simple, light lemon fruit, a hint of straw and plenty of minerality - a delicate wine on the rougher, more simple end of the spectrum - it's a base version of what Pouilly Fume does with the Sauvignon Blanc grape.

I love it by the gallon, second only to Trader Joe's $6 Muscadet (Château des Cleons Sur Lie).

It's usually reserved for drinking on its own or with pre-dinner snacks but we gave it a whirl with zucchini pie and it didn't really come close to working.

Zucchini pie is a combination of zucchini, onions, copious amounts of garlic, parsley, basil, grain mustard, mozzarella, parmesan and black pepper. Delicious. Every time.

Something killed the wine. Pepper? Garlic? Onions? Something. In retrospect, it should have been obvious that it was a gamble given the delicacy of the Pouilly Fume but it was worth a shot. Now we know.

#15 - Cassoulet, Mustard Asparagus & Oregon Sparkling Rosé

It's freaking cold!

And a cassoulet fit the mold.

We could have gone a multitude of wine directions with a cassoulet, mostly hanging around in the rich red arena. But there's some latitude here w/r/t the exact preparation of the cassoulet.

So we went in a different direction, thinking the yeasty, bubbly qualities of a sparkling would play nicely with the salt in a cassoulet and the rosé/pork match would fit well.

Food: Cassoulet with Dijon Mustard-Soaked Asparagus

Duck, pork, chicken thighs and veal sausage with white beans, bread crumbs and traditional French spicing.

Got the veal sausage from a new Lincoln Square addition called Gene's Sausage Shop, a revival of the traditional sausage shops long gone in the Lincoln Square neighborhood with a bit of a gourmet, niche shop feel to it. It's huge and has every kind of meat product you could imagine along with many other little products that are a tad hard to find. It's a scaled-down version of Fox & Obel that's right around the corner. Worth it.

The cassoulet, usually an intensely rich dish, came off much more medium-rich than expected. Not cassoulet-coma-inducing. Pretty great. Do you want some? Cuz we have some. In fact, we have it by the ton now.

Wine: 2007 Argyle Sparkling Rosé Dundee Hills - $40 Wine Discount Center

52% Pinot Meunier, 48% Pinot Noir

Pinot Meunier is a grape used in the making of champagne to bring a richness and body to the wine, something I didn't know until I just looked it up.

All strawberry with a little rose petal. Nice balance and finesse, alive, bubbly with a quality approaching elegant. If this was $25, it would be a steal. $40 makes us think twice but would consider it. Would probably be wonderful with a pre-dinner snack of ham charcuterie-type products.

Pairing: Useful, Pleasant But Not Resplendent

Things were merely slightly enhanced. A kick here, a kick there.

Maybe more importantly, nothing turned funky. In fact, with the mustard asparagus, something I expected to get a tad weird, it held up.

Overall, the rosé complimented the unexpected lightness of the meal. It was a meal that sat well and I don't think a Zinfandel, Shiraz or Rhone would have accomplished the same result.

#14 - Hanger Steak, Plantains, Tomato Salad and Rice With '06 Mas De Maha

Bad day to be an Angels fan.

In the span of three minutes, Lackey signed with the Red Sox and Halladay and Lee came off the market.

So it was with an open heart that a meal such as this took place.

Villa Creek's Mas de Maha opened us up to California wines. Before, we saw them as just too big, too forceful, too obvious without any subtlety.

Without any fun.

What was seen as not even an option, especially given our relative inexperience with some regions we loved and desire to explore those more, California, particularly Rhône blends, were suddenly on the table.

Food: Hanger Steak with Plantains, Tomato Salad and Rice

I was struck most with how Californian the meal felt. Something about nicely-charred, simple beef with simple rice and a Mediterranean tomato salad with acidity and fresh herbs that made it feel fresh, seasonal, clean and balanced.

And that's from a meal that should have felt mildly Cuban with the hanger and plantains.

Tomato salad made it. Cherry tomatoes, parsley, mint, red onion, pomegranate molasses, pomegranate seeds, thyme, lemon juice, peppers, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper - made and allowed to sit and marinate in itself. It's Turkish. Probably made the meal, at least for me.

Wine: 2006 Villa Creek Mas de Maha - $30 Binny's

Only inspired by Rhône blends, this one's 60% Tempranillo, 20% Grenache and 20% Mourvèdre from Paso Robles.

Fine by itself but flat-out ridiculous with food. Bring a little Latin flavors to the plate and it's sublime. Dark purple in the glass and a hint of wet tobacco on the nose, it displays tons of dark plum with a great contrast of blackberry. Concentrated fruit. Tannins are there but never pronounced, serving to properly separate flavors. Wild herbs play in the background with a little smoke. Easy drinking.

A seamlessness to the flavors keeps us coming back. Everything flows so well.

Pairing: Might be our Definition of Perfect

I was a bit shocked that the acidity so prevalent in the tomato salad didn't kill the wine. Just a little hollowness on the mid-palate. The Grenache peeked its head out as well, bringing some black pepper notes.

Overall, the Tempranillo does the bulk of the work with its characteristic plum and cherry notes with a hint of vanilla (Spanish Tempranillo usually has cherry first). What you get with food is a grape that doesn't try to get in the way. Always enough acidity and tannins to hold up just enough with flavors to compliment a wide range of cuisine. Double down on that with Latin-influenced food-type stuff. Explosive and quite memorable.

A slight gaminess brought on by, I assume, the Mourvèdre played well with the beef alone. But with the beef and plantains together, all the elements of the wine came together and became a perfect expression, in our world, of a great wine and food pairing. Everything was elevated.

Really. It's exactly what you want from a pairing, especially for a mere $30.

#13 - Hanger Steak, Yuca & Miguel Torres Chilean Cabernet

If you're ever stuck in the wine store over what wine to get and want to keep the budget low, you can rarely go wrong with anything by Miguel Torres. And believe me, there will be 12,000 different choices from the guy.

Torres mostly makes approachable wines in the northeastern region of Spain but he has vines everywhere in Spain for the most part. He's also a huge name in Chile, accounting for 4 million bottles a year.

We don't drink Cabernet much. It's not our thing. And I can't remember the last time I drank a Chilean Cabernet.

This bottle was given as a gift and had to be drunk soon in order to avoid hurt feelings. We had no expectations really, but were quite surprised.

Food: Hanger Steak with Chimichirri and Yuca Fries over Arugula

Big fans of hanger and yuca here. Yuca and mayo never gets old. And never will. Best. Fries. Ever.

With the chimichurri, the entire meal are Argentinean-ish with the pan-Latin yuca goodness added on.

This meal used to be a staple in the Ney household. Great to revisit it. Always good stuff.

Wine: 2006 Miguel Torres Cabernet Sauvignon Curicó Valley Manso de Velasco Old Vines - $20 Costco

Instead of the usual fruit bomb New World Cabernet offers, this one's more subtle and balanced. Still big, just doesn't stand up and say, "Look at me! I'm Cabernet!" like most New World Cabs.

Tons of plum, a little chocolate and sage. The wine allows you to get to the mid-palate without it screaming to notice it. Smooth, seamless. Nice underlying notes of fig. Everything's well-integrated, letting you find new things with each sip. Low tannins. Round mouthfeel.

For people who don't like Cabernet, this is a good one. If it was a little more earthy, could have been a great bargain Bordeaux if tasted blind.

Pairing: Fully functional

Really kicked up with the hanger steak, leaving a wonderful, long finish, bringing out a little cinnamon, maybe. Really nice with the yuca and mayo. A bit oaky with yuca alone. Pleasant with the arugula by itself, a rare thing for many reds.

The wine made for a meal greater than the sum of its parts. Can't ask for more.

And it's from Costco!

#12 - Wine Can Chicken and Two Wines

So...another Wine Can Chicken.

It's important to note that each Wine Can Chicken has been decidedly different. The first one was intensely herbal. The second one really kicked up the hoisin angle and this one...

All apricot and dill.

Most importantly, I don't want chicken any other way after having WCC.

On another note, if you're going to have something outside of red meat, duck and some other odd bird/game/beefy goodness, WCC is the answer nine times out of ten.

Who needs another rendition of pork?

Food: Apricot/Dill Wine Can Chicken with Asparagus, Baguette and French Butter

Simple meal. Easy to make for Mrs. Ney after a dinner with the family the night before.

Chicken had the usual sublime flavor with the apricot fully infused into it and the dill working with the chicken skin, standard asparagus serving as a good green vegetable with Trader Joe's baguette, something that's become as good as a fresh-baked baguette in many ways (it's frozen, made to throw briefly in the oven).

Wine: 2007 Domaine Giachino Altesse & 2007 Turkey Flat Rosé

Two wines because I'm a boob and chilled the wrong Giachino three days ago.

Domaine Giachino is an interesting story. It's wine from the Savoie (all the history that comes with tales of Savoy), the French Alps mountainous area on the southeastern border, a region that feels it's quite autonomous from France proper and do things a bit differently. The Vin de Savoie wine usually doesn't make its way to the U.S. but recently, we've seen a few bottles here and there (Whole Foods even has one now).

I chilled the Altesse, which is made from the grape of the same name that's indigenous to the region. Nobody else in the world makes it. Descriptions mention peaches and almond. Maybe. I got pears with a hint of herbs and an ever-so-slight hint of oily dryness. Simple. Pleasant enough.

I meant to chill the Abymes, which is made from the Jacquere grape, also indigenous to the region and only grown there. It's aged in its lees for a bit and imparts an oiliness that so pronounced and so absolutely great, I really should buy a case. All. Oil. Totally new to us up until six months ago.

C'est la vie (look at me! I speak French!).

Well...the Altesse didn't do much with the food. So we opened the Turkey Flat Rosé. It's Mrs. Ney's favorite rosé and is definitely in my top three, probably because I'm still uncertain whether I like Grenache or not.

It's mostly Grenache with some Shiraz, Cabernet and Dolcetto. Bit of strawberry in this one with maybe some watermelon. Got some tannins initially but it went away. Definitely a tad floral. Pretty. Interesting. Changes. Goes down wonderfully.

Pairing: Solid with the rosé, not with the Giachino

Settled on the rosé and messed around with the Giachino.

Mrs. Ney brought some peri-peri sauce to the meal and it became a great example of what certain wine does with certain food. With the sauce, the rosé was perfect. Subtle and played at the perfect pitch in the background with the right level of fruit coming to the fore. Without the sauce, it was merely good. Nothing wrong with it at all, but just merely good. A very approachable wine overall. Great wine by itself and always fun. And great when it isn't so...Grenache-y (read: A bit gnarly).

Giachino bordered on a dull white. Bland in most every sense. Drinkable and technically a fine little wine, just not interesting with this food.

#11 - Brisket & '06 Amarone

I took off work Sunday because the vibe Saturday night did terrible things to my psyche. The trend was not my friend.

So Mrs. Ney whipped up a brisket using a mysterious sauce long ago put in the freezer unlabeled that tasted somewhat like homemade barbecue sauce.

Possible wine selections went all over the map. Shiraz, Zinfandel, Rhone?

One of her friends at work took a trip to Northern Italy recently. We gave her some money, asking for a bottle of cheap Amarone we probably couldn't get here.

What we got was an Italian supermarket Amarone.

Last year, for a work Christmas party at Piccolo Sogno, we had a stellar Amarone (2004 Poggio Amarone della Valpolicella) that showed us the wonders to be had from the style.

That wine, and Amarone in general, has such an unmatched density with a pronounced raisiny character and hints of vanilla. It's a wine like no other.

This, unfortunately, was not like that Amarone...or Amarone in general.

Food: Beef Brisket with rosemary potatoes and shaved Brussels sprouts with bacon

Braised in the mystery freezer sauce with five-spice and vanilla bean. Thick, syrupy and spicy. Good stuff. Potatoes with mayo for dipping and shaved Brussels sprouts done in butter, bacon and bacon fat. My new-found and inexplicable love for Brussels sprouts continues.

Wine: 2006 Conte di Bregonzo Amarone della Valpolicella

It was Italian supermarket wine. Get what you pay for.

So, instead of talking about the ordinariness of this wine (read: dull), just some facts about Amarone.

It's a dry, rich red wine made from dried grapes in the Veneto region of Italy. Using the Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara grapes (all indigenous to the region and rarely seen elsewhere), the grapes are harvested fully ripe and then dried in drying chambers (traditionally it was done on straw mats in the sun), intensifying the juices and creating a hugely rich, dry red with very little acid that's high in alcohol (14% minimum with many much higher).

I've only had a few Amarones but the fruit is usually all deep cherry with spice and the previously mentioned raisin and vanilla. 2004 was the vintage of a generation according to most and they usually aren't released until five years after the vintage (hence the bland Italian supermarket wine).

Valpolicella is the viticultural zone in the province of Verona that makes table wine by the tons and Amarone is the good stuff in the provincial pool. To be called Amarone della Valpolicella, the percentage of each grape in the blend has to be exact and is governed by the DOC Italian wine laws.

Amarone itself is a form of straw wine. I have little experience with it outside of Amarone and another great dessert wine called Passito de Pantelleria (picture left), a dessert wine made from the Muscat grape on the small island of Pantelleria in the southern Mediterranean.

It's a concentrated wine with flavors of figs, candied oranges, caramel and spices. Great stuff.

If you can find it, by all means, get one. You won't be disappointed.

Pairing: Nothing interesting to speak of

Only tasted like Amarone on occasion. When it didn't, it could have been anything. Mostly, it just tasted like table wine. Nothing too offensive outside of an oakiness here and there with some moderately nice tart cherry. Did nothing exciting with the food. The Amarone character came with the potatoes but nothing much with the brisket.

More Amarone will be drunk soon. Just not this one.